


Alien Anthropologists

by doublejoint



Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29323863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint
Summary: “I was wondering when you were going to take me back to your spaceship.”“Is that an innuendo?” Kaoru wiggles his eyebrows.
Relationships: Hitachiin Kaoru/Ootori Kyouya
Kudos: 27
Collections: February Ficlet Challenge 2021: Apocalypse No





	Alien Anthropologists

**Author's Note:**

> For Day 9 of the February Ficlet Challenge: Alien

Kyoya is never surprised to hear himself likened to an alien. It’s a comparison he’s made himself enough times by now, perhaps not enough to outweigh the number of times it’s been said by others, but a substantial amount. It’s an easy way to position himself, an anthropologist studying the way of humans in order to make a profit and give himself the highest advantage. If he leans into it, people might say more things around him that they think he won’t understand, or betray themselves in different ways. (Then again, it depends on the person.) It’s a comparison that falls apart when you look at it too closely, but people don’t, generally look too closely, particularly not the people in his social circles. They’re too obsessed with themselves to do more than brush their fingers on the outside, or glance for half a second before they mistake two dimensions for three. 

Tamaki is not like that; Kyoya had found that out the hard way. The same could be said of the rest of the members of the Host Club, but Tamaki and even Haruhi can’t quite get under his skin the same way Kaoru can, a sharp edge barbed at exactly the angle he can’t see, snagging and unraveling him. If Kyoya is the alien anthropologist marking down field notes, Kaoru is the alien among the humans, a facsimile. (As a younger twin, would that bother him? He’s heard it before, but from Kyoya it might, from Kyoya it might seem dismissive, reducing him to something he’s not. He will allow Kyoya to see him as he is, green skin and tentacled fingers and all, sometimes.)

“Senpai, what are you smiling about?”

Well, fuck, Kyoya hadn’t really meant to. But no one else has noticed, or if they have they aren’t saying. 

“I was wondering when you were going to take me back to your spaceship.”

“Is that an innuendo?” Kaoru wiggles his eyebrows.

Kyoya snorts. “Hardly.”

“What planet are you suggesting I’m from?”

“You tell me.”

“Well, they say that men are from Mars…but that would be boring.”

“It is the red planet.”

Kaoru sticks out his tongue. “Couldn’t you come up with something better than that? And anyway, why am I taking you back to my spaceship in the first place?”

“Do you ever feel like an alien among humans?”

“Nah,” says Kaoru.

He cracks the knuckles on his left hand; Kyoya does not wince, although he would like to. He won’t give Kaoru the satisfaction.

“I can do it again.”

“Please don’t, Kaoru.”

“Feeling like an alien is more Haruhi’s thing, I think. Y’know, rich bastards.”

“That was a terrible imitation.”

“I wasn’t trying very hard.”

They lapse into silence. Kyoya’s tea is lukewarm. He is supposed to be updating the auction listings for their costumes for last week, but they won’t release them for another few days. He’s got a history paper due sooner than that; he navigates to the article he’d meant to read at lunch but couldn’t because Tamaki had spent the whole time talking to him about how great it was that Haruhi had taken him to the supermarket when there was a sale on beef. 

Kaoru sighs. Under the table, he nudges Kyoya’s ankle with his foot. It’ll leave a mark on Kyoya’s trouser sock, and there was a time that Kyoya would have bet a substantial sum of money on that being his primary objective. Now, he’s not sure that it’s Kaoru’s objective at all, or whether he only wants contact. Or whether he wants more contact than this. Kaoru is unpredictable--and again, all of the Host Club members are. It would be crude and overly-reductive to say it makes him a member of another species. Perhaps they’re too similar, aliens from the same strange planet, unable to see each other due to that kind of proximity. 

“Senpai, you don’t have to act like you’re not human,” says Kaoru.

His loafer is soft against the inside of Kyoya’s ankle. Perhaps it’s only Kyoya who can’t see. He’s grown so used to the dirt and smudges on his glasses that he never remembers that they’re there. It’s easier to act as if he’s set apart, the odd one out. Everyone’s got something that makes them unique; it’s just easier to see that in yourself than in others. Kyoya doesn’t always look closely, even though he accuses others of the same. 

“Am I a hypocrite?”

“Not especially,” says Kaoru. “But you are being unusually self-centered today.”

He leans forward on the table, his arms folded, his blazer straining at the elbows. Ripped, how much would it sell for? Kyoya wants to hold his hand instead of the teacup. 

“It’s not bad,” says Kaoru.

“I’d gathered your opinion already.”

Kaoru smiles, and then stretches his arms over his head. His shirt rides up on his stomach; he’d done that on purpose. Though it’s nothing Kyoya hasn’t seen before, it’s the setting that makes it slightly risque. That much he can read out of Kaoru, he supposes. So he’s not an alien after all, but just another human, playing his own human games for his own human prizes, with his own human relationships.

“You know the guests request you and Hikaru together. Wouldn’t want to keep them waiting.”

“I don’t want to keep you waiting, either.”

Kaoru winks, and Kyoya smiles, briefly but long enough for Kaoru to see it, and to snapshot it in his memory. 

“Don’t use club time to do your homework. You get requested too,” says Kaoru, as he stands up and heads off.

Kyoya navigates back to the auction site. He might as well get something done. 

“My darling brother! I missed you so!” Kaoru calls, still tucking in his shirt as he re-enters his host mode.

Maybe they can go on a date to the planetarium soon. Kyoya’s father is on the board, and that ought to allow him access after-hours--not that something like that would impress Kaoru, but it would be nice to be alone for once.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
